Leslie Street, Richmond, VIC 3121

I've been renting a house in Leslie Street for about eight months and I really love it. I'm a young professional, living with three others in a great old house with an excellent back yard. both sets of next door neighbours are warm and friendly. There's a fair bit of noise- mostly from the construction sites on victoria st, there's a lot of apartments being built, and also from the occasional party. but I like it; the hustle and bustle is always friendly.

I have found syringes in my front yard a few times, and we've had a couple of break-ins to our cars. Nothing to the house, as yet.

parking's a drag but that's what you get the closer to the city you are. On the other hand, public transport is great, and Victoria Gardens shopping centre is just a stone's throw away. And the food! plenty of cheap Vietnamese on Victoria St and Bridge Road is an easy walk the other way.

My favourite bit is that it takes a five minute walk to be in studley park. I go there most mornings and all of a sudden you are in the middle of the bush.

Compared to living in Balwyn, the area is vibrant, friendly and exciting.

We're a professional couple in our late twenties and have lived here for almost a year. The noise in this neighbourhood (at least on our end, close to Victoria St.) is ridiculous, especially in summer. People have parties on their front porches and stay up making noise and breaking bottles until the wee hours. There are bogans galore. I'm greeted to the sound of a mum screaming at her kids every morning at about the same time in front of her house. Try-hard P-platers enjoy driving through the alleyways cranking their bass and cause the floor to vibrate at various times day and night. Hoons fly up and down the street and occasionally do burnouts a couple of blocks away until the cops come. There are six foreign students crammed into one of the two bedroom apartments in our building, trying to save money. They're obviously noisy as well.

We're moving soon. I can say that the street is good for being near a tram line and in walking distance to Vic Gardens. But definitely not worth the noise. Some of the people in our building are lovely (and elderly). But the unsavoury element nearby and particularly some of the visitors to Victoria St. (we often see junkies on the tram getting on and off a few blocks up the road) do not a happy home make.

Though on a good note, there are some great cheap Asian restaurants close by (Van Mai is a great inexpensive Vietnamese restaurant and The Kilim has good Turkish food) and everyone loves the Terminus bar. So if you're a night owl yourself and don't mind a bit of grunge, you'll probably love it here.